The online source for news, articles, information and other resources about the paranormal.

Tag Archives: Hauntings

One element I always enjoyed in researching about the paranormal was reading legends from ancient times to urban myths. I covered a vast amount over the years, skimming through tales of vampires, bizarre deaths, haunted houses along with the outlandish such as cursed underwear. However, when I believe there could be nothing more disturbing out there to learn, urban legends involving bathrooms comes around. Not even the toilet is spared from stories where one could encounter demons, ghosts, portals and even death. In this second installment of supernatural entities to beware of when going to the bathroom here is the Japanese urban tales of Toire no Hanako-san.

Over the years, I learned about certain locations people avoid entering after dark and warn their children not to play in, as it’s rumored to be haunted, surrounded by death or told in some urban legend. There are few places within the world, where actual events occur revealing something unnatural lurking within and entering it would endanger your life. Such a place lies within Japan, at the foot of Mount Fuji, a forest called Aokigahara or the Sea of Trees.

The Bell Witch legend goes way back to the early 1800s when John Bell bought a property in the then called Red River, Tennessee and moved his family from North Carolina. The name of the town has since changed to Adams, Tennessee. John Bell acquired more land and he had a total acreage of 328 acres. He had six children in total, three born in North Carolina and three in Tennessee namely, Betsy, Richard and Joel. He began farming on his land and one day while he was out in the fields, he encountered a strange looking animal in the middle of the crops. He did the only natural thing he could do. He shot at it and missed, but it disappeared. However, later that night at the dinner table, the family began hearing strange noises and knocks on the walls of the family’s log house.

I remember one Halloween, when I was 6 or 7 years old, wanting to dress in something scary while trick or treating. Around that time, my whole understanding of scary monsters were ghosts, dragons, bridge troll or any villain from a fairy tale. Keep in mind this was all before the Internet, DVD s, and even before VCR s with the only access to entertainment included books along with 12 channels on television. My final choice was a ghost and with mom’s help I dawn on the classic costume of an old bed sheet that had two eye holes cut out. This Halloween will have many spirits floating around as we look into the Japanese lore of Yurei in this week’s installment about monsters of nightmares.

One of the most important items to have in any paranormal investigation is a camcorder or even a smart phone with a camera. Video recordings are needed in collecting data, providing evidence, capturing views from alternatives angles and any number of other reasons. Over the years, the technology in recording devices had advance greatly along with the believable hoaxes and fakes of paranormal caught on tape. In the past decade, I seen my share of fabricated videos, but there are a few which have not been fully debunked or explained, These recordings have appeared on the news, Internet and cable TV as possible ghost or paranormal activity to actually been taped. Here is a YouTube video that shows five of them.

Podcasts on iTunes

Got A Story To Tell?

Had an encounter with the Paranormal? I would like to hear your story and post it on a new section on Abnormal Realms called Encounters. Feel free to write in to abnormalrealm@gmail.com or fill in the spaces below.